


An Empty Hell

by Diomedes



Category: Marvel 616, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Asphyxiation, Betrayal, Body Horror, Choking, Dark, Dark Steve Rogers, Dubious Consent, Guilt, Heavy Angst, Hell, Horror, Inferno (La Divina Commedia | The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri), M/M, Morally Ambiguous Character, Nobody Dies, Nobody is Dead, Plot Twists, Psychological Horror, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sort Of, Temporary Amnesia, Unhealthy Relationships, those tags should not comfort you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:47:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27853646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diomedes/pseuds/Diomedes
Summary: Tony was the one who got them stranded in this barren, strangely empty place so it was his responsibility to get them back home.The only problem was: he literally couldn't remember how to do that.The landscape was horrendously beautiful, like no Hell Tony could have ever hoped to deserve.----------------------------------
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 18
Kudos: 49
Collections: Diomedes's Horror Collection, Stony's Sad Secret Santa





	An Empty Hell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [NobodysBloodyPrincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NobodysBloodyPrincess/gifts).



> This was written for [NobodysBloodyPrincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NobodysBloodyPrincess) for Stony's Sad Secret Santa 2020. I hope it hits enough of the dark/possessive Steve and supernatural horror vibes you were looking for. I was a challenge newbie so giant thank yous to [Sapphic_Futurist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphic_Futurist) for the beta and encouragement, and [ressurectedhippo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/resurrectedhippo) for answering all my questions.
> 
> This was heavily inspired by Dante's Inferno and that beautiful, hellish scene in _1917_ with the [Night Window music](https://youtu.be/xolxw74qqgw?t=92) that I listened to over and over while writing this.
> 
> BEFORE YOU READ: Dark is not a joke tag. A full list of content cautions can be found in the endnotes.

_Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate -_ Canto III, Divina Commedia

Frequently translated as: _Abandon all hope, ye who enter here._

* * *

Tony woke with a mouthful of mud. The grit tasted metallic; devoid of organic matter as he spat it out in a coughing fit. His naked body shook and writhed as it expelled the last remnants of the sludge onto the ground and finally he could breathe. The air he gulped down tasted as flat and metallic as the mud but it did its job. He rolled onto his back and pried his crusted eyelids open to stare upwards. The blank grey sky that greeted him was almost unrecognizable as such. It was impossible to tell if it was night or day; the sun or moon hidden behind the opaque layer of clouds. It was beautiful in its own way and the dull, diffuse silver reminded Tony of the crushed velvet interior of coffin lids.

He shivered despite the temperate climate and levered himself with difficulty onto sore, blistered feet. There were footprints in the mud leading off in various directions, criss-crossing each other like a hideous stampede. No birdsong broke the monotonous silence. The flat light made his bare limbs seem paler, skin dotted with smears of brown muck and dried blood. He was naked but otherwise mostly intact. There was a bump near his hairline that hurt dully when pressed. The skin around his collar felt raw. With numb fingers he traced the edges of three small, circular punctures in his abdomen. They weren’t bleeding but the internal ache made Tony worried they ran deep. He couldn’t remember how they came to be.

Tony looked out across the mud plain and saw only more barren wasteland. It was an unimaginative landscape: no mountains, no hills. Sans life of any kind. There was no grass to trample underfoot, no maggots in his wounds, no vultures circling for an easy meal. The sole marker of distinction was some remnant of an iron gate half-buried in the ground. Its rusted tips protruded like knives; a tetanus invitation should one have the inclination for lockjaw. Tony traced his fingers over the ironwork and watched it crumble to dust. Even the metal was dead.

It was not as wholly silent as Tony had first believed. He could hear the faint rush of water in the distance and he stumbled like a newborn ibis across the flats, navigating by ear until he found the river. Like the sky, the river was hardly archetypical of its species: it was narrow but the murky navy surface was streaked with stripes of white scum racing violently down the rapid course. Not for drinking then but it’d do for washing.

Tony doused himself and only when he did not awaken from this nightmare did the magnitude of his situation hit him. “Where the hell am I?” he murmured.

“You don’t remember?” came a sharp familiar voice.

Tony’s head shot up and standing on the other side of the river was Steve glaring at him in full Captain America regalia.

“Steve?”

“Stark.” Steve’s jaw clamped shut. So that was how it was. “Answer the question.”

Tony’s mouth twisted. “I - I don’t remember _anything_. How did we get here? Where even _is_ here?”

“You tell me,” Steve’s frustration deepened, “you’re the one who brought us to this place.”

 _Shit_. Tony didn’t remember that but the cold drip of poisonous guilt in his gut meant his body certainly did. Steve remembered though and he was pissed. He had his arms crossed, feet stubbornly planted on the opposite bank as if daring Tony to defend himself.

“Just... stay there,” Tony said as he waded across the polluted water.

Despite its narrowness the river was deceptively deep and the bottom dropped away almost instantly. Tony was a competent swimmer but he found himself fighting the current as if it were a riptide. The water was too viscous to be any form of true water. It was like swimming through syrup and with each stroke Tony sunk further in. The floating white tendrils snagged his calves and arms like kelp as he swam, begging him to follow and let the flow take him where it wont. He closed his eyes and the river’s triumphant gurgling rang happily in his ears.

He had been swept a fair distance downstream before he managed to dig his feet into the muddy opposing bank. The tendrils reluctantly released him as he fought to pull himself onshore and spat out mouthfuls of swallowed water. From where he was doubled over coughing, Tony could only see Captain America’s black combat boots as Steve joined him. A heavy hand landed on his back and Tony stiffened, suddenly aware of his nudity.

“Dammit, Tony. You didn’t have to do that, there’s a rowboat tied up a mile upstream.”

Steve’s hands left streaks of warmth behind them as he manhandled Tony upright. The water hadn’t been cold but the lukewarm temperature of everything meant that Steve’s body heat felt like taking a burning brand to newborn skin. Tony submitted himself to the inspection as Steve’s hands roamed: pausing at his neck, his cheek. Steve paused at the three puncture wounds in his abdomen, pulling the skin around them taunt.

Tony tried to suppress a flinch and failed. “I don’t remember how I got those either.”

Steve retreated and the absence felt worse. “Do they hurt?”

 _No. Yes._ “Sometimes.”

Tony finally dared to look into Steve’s face. It was rare that Steve looked his age. He didn’t wrinkle like the rest of them but right now his eyes were pools of tired blue: already sick of everything they’d seen and Tony was just one more sorry sight.

“Here.” Steve held out a replica of Tony’s black undersuit.

“Where did you get this?”

“I found it hanging in a tree.”

“You found a _tree_?”

“It was dead.” Steve shrugged. “Or it might as well have been. I don’t know, it’s hard to tell in this place.”

The undersuit stuck to Tony’s wet skin as he wrestled it on. The material was a thin black blend shot through with electric blue but it felt as good as armour - bare feet be damned.

Tony took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “So what do _you_ remember?”

Steve’s eyes grew cloudy. “I remember you telling me everything was going to be alright. That you had a plan, I just needed to trust you and we’d make it through. And then I woke up here.” Steve’s face shifted and he growled. “What did you do, Tony?”

“I have no idea.” Tony couldn’t recall any of that. Everything that came before was foggy, sparsely punctuated by feelings of dread.

“How can you _not know_?”

Tony sputtered. “You don’t believe me?”

“Why should I?” Steve retorted.

Tony swallowed and let the bitterness rest heavy in his gut.

Steve exhaled and his eyes closed. “Just - Just tell me you know how we get back.”

“I - " Tony picked up and discarded hypothesis after hypothesis. _Alternate dimension, Dreamvision, Enchantress, Doom._ Too many possibilities, not enough data. “I don’t know. Not yet.”

Steve deflated. His uniform had seen better days and his cowl was pushed back revealing straw blond hair. The colour was high in his cheeks and his shield was missing but even in disarray he looked entirely too alive for the dead landscape painted around him. Tony stared down at himself and knew he fit right in.

“So what do we do?” Steve asked.

“We go that way.” Tony pointed with more confidence than he had. It was an arbitrary choice. In a place devoid of landmarks or known destination, one direction was as good as any other.

“Tony - “

“Trust me,” Tony pleaded. He even smiled. “I promised you I had a plan and even if I don’t remember the details, I know whatever we’re looking for is in that direction.” It was a lie but one designed to keep hope alive until he could find an actual solution. “C’mon, Cap. You followed me this far.”

Steve weighed what Tony’s word was worth in this empty place, then he nodded reluctantly. Tony turned in the anointed direction and the two of them struck out across the muddy flats towards an as yet invisible exit. Tony walked just far enough ahead to maintain the careful charade that he knew where he was going. Steve stood just far enough away to be out of Tony’s reach. They trudged for hours in silence. Every time Tony opened his mouth the tension in Steve’s shoulders warned him off. If Steve had indeed met a tree in this place it was no longer to be found on the horizon.

They didn’t stop for lunch because neither of them got hungry and there was nothing to eat. They didn’t get thirsty and they passed no water. They didn’t get tired but they did get bored and old habits die hard. They’d stop periodically to rest and pretend that time still meant something here. But it was Steve’s silence that got to Tony. He spoke only as necessary and no more. Tony tried to populate the empty air with ideas and apologies and hope but none of it filled the gap between them. The sky never changed.

Eventually the mud gave way to firmer dirt and upon it rested the ruins of some ancient castle dwelling. The formation clearly marked courtyards and rooms but the ravages of time had brought the stone walls so low they no longer provided any protection. Nothing remained save the rock; textiles and wood long since rotted away. The ruins were older than anything that could have been dug up in Greece or Rome. Tony stood in what remained of some princely bed chamber, now flattened dirt and not much else.

“I wonder who lived here.”

Steve broke his self-imposed mutism. “People who didn’t know any better.”

Tony wondered if the castle-dwellers had found the way out or if they too were wandering this seemingly endless place.

They went on. They made better time on the firmer ground though without the position of the sun Tony could only guess at their progress. Sleep eluded them but whenever Steve called for a halt Tony dutifully closed his eyes and counted Fibonacci sheep. Every time he reopened them the sky was the same flat, metallic ceiling and Steve was already awake. Tony never knew exactly how long they made each day last. During their long marches he tried counting the seconds when he wasn’t distracted by the burgeoning panic at the thought of letting Steve down if Tony couldn’t lead them back through the looking glass and home. He always pointed onwards though, towards the receding horizon.

The landscape began to change: dirt giving way to piles of rubble strip-mined from a quarry. The rocks were piled up in lonely ten-foot towers that were dotted across the landscape like oil wells in rural Texas. Scattered around their bases were offerings of broken liquor bottles and old, smashed coins.

Tony removed a rock and studied it. “Corbicite. Raw vibranium ore. But unless T’Challa really let this place go I’m betting we’re not in Wakanda.”

Steve grunted. “Put it back.”

Tony whistled as he looked at the neat pile. “This amount of corbicite is worth about a 2 million back home provided you could extract the vibran - “ Steve grabbed his wrist hard and there was pain and a muffled _click_ as Tony dropped the ore into Steve’s waiting hand. “ - I wasn’t going to steal it, Cap! Jesus!”

“Can’t you ever just leave well enough alone?” Steve replaced the stone in the exact spot Tony had taken it from. “It’s a funerary cairn.”

They were all funerary cairns; every one of the dozen structures dotting the plain marked a death. It was then that Tony saw what Cap had: embedded in the torso of the cairn among the dazzling shards of ore was a cracked arc reactor. He curbed the urge to reach for it.

“We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore, Toto,” he mumbled as he nursed the delicate bones in his wrist, pain singing sharply.

“I’m sorry,” Steve said and Tony’s gaze shot up. Steve reached out cautiously and stroked the soft skin of Tony’s injured wrist. It was meant to be comforting. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just don’t like this place and this thing reminded me...“ Steve stared up at the memorial. “I can’t lose you.”

Tony took the lighter interpretation. “Not like I can outrun you, Cap.”

Steve’s grip tightened unconsciously and Tony felt the bones of his wrist grind together. He adjusted his answer. “I can’t lose you either, Steve. I won’t.” He swallowed. “Guess you’re stuck with me.”

Steve looked at Tony like he might disappear at any second. “Let’s camp here for the night.”

It wasn’t night and Tony didn’t feel the least bit tired but he did as Steve asked. It turned out to be a fortuitous decision because less than an hour later the storm hit. There was no warning: the sky was the same mid-range grey it always was and then the storm announced itself with a thunderclap. The winds raced across the plain in great gusts, howling as they ripped past Tony’s eardrums. The cold rain was whipped up in a frenzy and the great cairn only provided partial shelter as the wind chased them around the base of the tower. Forked lightning descended from the clouds like brilliant, jagged tears in the universe and flared brightly for longer than physics should have allowed. Despite the circumstance Tony doubted there was a man alive who could have denied the marvellous sight it made.

Tony was soaked through in minutes. He sat next to Steve and resisted the urge to nestle closer. Steve might have well been a statue. The kevlar of his uniform conducted no heat and underneath it the hard planes of muscle were locked tight. Tony closed his eyes, taking advantage of his false sleep to steal comfort as he rested his head on Steve’s shoulder. He didn’t sleep per se but he let the rise and fall of the storm’s violent melody lull him into a trance.

What pulled him back to full consciousness wasn’t the fading wind but Steve’s fidgeting. The world was the same grey twilight but the rain had abated to a warm drizzle so light the droplets were nearly suspended in air.

“Steve?”

The man in question remained as still as stone. “I can’t sleep.”

He sounded so miserable, eyes squeezed shut and teeth clenched. He hadn’t let himself relax at all. They were trapped in a nightmare and while Tony could rest if not sleep, Steve was denied any such comfort. Tony’s guilt felt like slick tar clawing its way up his esophagus, bubbling up from the infinite pit in his stomach. It would be unfair not to ease the frustrations of the man Tony had dragged into this place with him.

He let his hand fall on Steve’s knee. He couldn’t give Steve an escape plan yet but he could offer this: a willing body while no one was watching. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Steve stared at it hopelessly and then gave a short, hysterical laugh. “Now, Tony? Really?”

Tony didn’t balk. “Let me do something for you. It might help.”

Steve grimaced like he knew it wouldn’t and knew that Tony wouldn’t quit until he’d tried and failed. Steve barely changed position, just nudged his knees out wider and Tony found himself once again lying in mud but with a much greater prize in sight. He struggled to undo the zipper of Cap’s uniform pants and when he’d looked up for help, he’d only found Steve’s remote face staring down at him. Tony bowed his head back down. The sharp pain in his sprained wrist was brief and excruciating as Tony wrestled the zipper open but he was rewarded with a sharp hiss when he engulfed as much of Steve’s manhood as he could on one go. He couldn’t taste anything of Steve, just generic skin and aroused flesh. The angle was terrible and drool ran down Tony’s chin to join the mud as he tried to accommodate Steve’s length. His elbows dug into the soft muck and he slipped forward, impaling himself until the cockhead hit the back of his throat.

Steve's hand ran through the damp strands of Tony’s hair before stilling, the heavy weight of it slowly burdening Tony’s neck muscles, pressing him further and further down Steve’s cock with each pass and making it harder and harder for him to pull up. Tony didn’t think to fight it. He just swallowed more, breathed less, and ignored the water welling up along his lower lashline. When he inevitably choked Steve let him pull off only to patiently watch him sputter and cough.

Steve’s gaze was impassive as Tony blinked, releasing tears down cheeks that he roughly wiped away with embarrassment.

“I can do this,” Tony rasped in a haze of lust and pleading. “Please.”

Steve said nothing but a moment later one of his boots landed on Tony’s lower back, pushing him back into the mud. Tony was reduced to a man with a simple mechanical task. All it required was spit and motion and pressure just-so. It wouldn’t make up for whatever the hell he’d promised Cap before but a brief moment of respite in this place was hardly a generous offer. It was a selfish one at heart; Tony _wanted_. 

“Off,” Steve grunted eventually and when Tony didn’t move fast enough he was wrenched out of the way as Steve came silently, stroking himself. He made no sound as spurt after spurt of his seed soaked into the saturated ground.

Tony’s mouth twitched at the waste. He would always be greedy for whatever Steve Rogers would give him. He’d long since resigned himself to a life spent at the beck and call of that particular addiction. He was achingly hard in his undersuit but the prospect of jerking off with a sprained wrist was as unpleasant as it was inevitable. He pressed against his clothed erection before Steve was yanking Tony’s hand away and replacing it with his own.

“You don’t have to - “ Tony bit off the objection. It would have been half-hearted anyway.

In less than a second Steve had Tony pinned against the funerary cairn, million-dollar stones digging into his back. The front of the undersuit was now caked in dirt but somehow Steve kept himself clean. One hand snaked its way under Tony’s waistband and set a punishing pace. It was too dry and quick, the friction burning, and it didn’t matter. Tony came violently in his own undersuit, Steve’s arm the only thing keeping him up. The mixture of pleasure and pain was a radical sensation in contrast to the monotony of their aimless, want-less march. 

He came down from his high still pinned. The inside of his undersuit was a sticky mess, semen drying tacky. Steve’s forehead was leaning against the cairn in the crook of Tony's neck. The drizzling rain had turned impossibly to snow; small, white flakes floating down and settling onto blond hair like a crown. Steve shivered when the icy droplets melted onto his nape and Tony yearned to lick them off. Instead he stuck out his tongue to catch the drifting snow, admiring the miracle for what it was.

There was a frosted layer of white on everything before one of them spoke again.

“I can’t sleep in this place,” Steve confessed. The hushed words rustled past Tony’s ear and he wasn’t sure if he was meant to hear them or if they were meant for a dead man.

“I’m sorry,” Tony whispered. He was glad Steve couldn’t see his face.

“I know you are,” Steve replied leadenly.

It wouldn’t be enough. Tony had to get them out. There was no point in waiting for morning because morning didn’t exist. They abandoned the cairns and the thin snow for the flat horizon once more, trudging under the half light. If this place was a nightmare it was nearly a perfect one as Tony could imagine: a place of endless boredom but without dreams, where there was no life to keep you company except a lover out of your reach and he was angry at you because you’d told him you’d had a plan and you were beginning to suspect you lied. All Tony could do was keep pointing them towards the horizon and saying _just over there,_ and every time he did he saw a bit more hope leech out of Steve. When they stopped to rest, Tony would offer a hand or mouth in silent apology and afterwards he would gaze up at the sky until the colour seemed permanently etched onto his retinas. Then when Steve had determined they’d reached that ineffable hour they’d rise and start again.

The swamp arose out of the barren flats like a stinking oasis, the stench permeating the stagnant air only when they were nearly upon it. The surface was opaque and gave the impression of being nearly solid due to the decaying layers of floating peat. Thin browning grasses that may have once been reeds were petrified at the edges in clusters. It extended as far as the eye could see.

“We have to go through,” Tony declared.

“No.” Every inch of Steve’s posture told Tony he would not be moved.

This argument had been a long time coming. “Steve - "

“No.” Steve’s voice was final, curdled resentment floating to the surface. “I’ve followed you this far, I’m not going further until you tell me where we're going.”

“It’s simple. We're off to see the Wizard. _Follow the yellow brick road._ ”

Steve glared. “You said you’d left us a way out so what are you looking for? A portal, a key, a machine, what?”

Tony huffed, his own frustration leaking through. “I was thinking more along the lines of a pair of ruby slippers.”

Steve’s eyes narrowed. “You have no idea where we are or how to get us out, do you?”

“At the moment? No.”

Steve sucked in a breath. “So you’ve been lying to me.”

Tony hedged. “Well, I probably wasn’t lying to you when I said I had a plan which means I just need to figure out what past-me meant. I didn’t bring us here on our honeymoon, Cap.”

“But you don’t know what you’re looking for.”

Tony pulled out a thin smile. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

The muscle in Steve’s jaw jumped. “Could you be serious for once in your life!”

“Oh come on, this isn’t the worst place we’ve been stuck. It’s not even the worst place I’ve woken up naked without my memory and you pissed at me.”

Steve's fists clenched. “I’m not following you into that swamp if your plan is to just wander around and hope to bump into the exit by accident!”

“Fine. Then you can stay here. Alone.” Tony took a step into the bog. “It’s your choice.”

Steve didn’t move so Tony started across the marsh, bare feet sinking ankle-deep into quicksand with every step. He only made it ten feet before Steve tackled him. The soft surface of the swamp broke Tony’s fall as he fell face-first into the shallows. He inhaled reflexively and his lungs flooded. The mud shoved into his mouth was deja vu before a strong arm looped around his waist to haul him up. He choked on air, dizzy.

Steve was shouting too close to his ear. “You’re not going anywhere without - ”

Tony spat a mouthful of silt into Cap’s face and aimed an elbow at his solar plexus. The shifting, uneven topography of the swamp bottom worked in Tony’s favour as Steve lost his balance and splashed down hard. He was still close enough to reach out and grab Tony’s calf, dragging him closer. Tony’s other foot lashed out and managed to land fairly solidly into Steve’s torso and there was a sharp cry as Tony was suddenly released. Gasping for breath Tony retreated further into the bog, his lighter weight to his benefit, but no one was following. Steve was still on his knees with one arm wrapped tightly across his right ribcage.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Tony had already known it wasn’t just lack of sleep that had worn Steve down.

“You’re injured.”

A single tear carved out a clean track as it streaked down Steve’s mud-stained face. “Yes.”

Tony tried to control his breathing, his tongue suddenly too big for his mouth. “How bad?”

Steve slowly maneuvered his uniform top until it was hiked up to his armpits revealing a long gash across his right torso, between his ribs. Even at a distance Tony could see several rows of already torn stitches in patriotic colours. From in between the red, white, and blue thread oozed an infected mixture of blood and pus. Tony swore he could see the wound throb painfully in sync with Steve’s pulse.

“Shit.” Tony hadn’t known they were on a time table. He made his way back to Steve. They had nothing to cauterize or dress wounds. They didn’t even have clean water let alone painkillers that would work on a supersoldier. _“Christ_ , Steve. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Didn’t want to worry you. You’re injured too.” Steve motioned towards Tony’s puncture wounds. “You’re hurting as much as I am.”

“I’m really not.” The holes in Tony’s abdomen only stung when he remembered they were there. “How can I help?”

“You can’t,” Steve replied. “It’s not as bad as it looks, the pain’s manageable just... persistent.” And the sweet reprieve of sleep didn’t exist here. No blissful dreams where the pain faded from conscious thought.

Steve looked at him. “I’m sorry for tackling you, just - " he drew a quick breath before whispering, “...please don’t leave me behind.”

“Never,” Tony vowed. “I’m keeping my promise. I’m getting us out.” His voice turned wistful. “I know you don’t believe me but I will.”

“I _want_ to believe you,” Steve whispered ferociously.

“Then trust me. If I fail then I’m stuck right here with you. We leave together, or not at all.”

Steve nodded slowly. “Okay, Tony. Okay.”

It was slow going at Steve’s pace but eventually Tony’s words proved prophetic and the marsh underneath them solidified into solid ground once more. The crumbling remnants of a red stone wall marked the edge of the bog and beyond that was the downslope of a large escarpment running all the way from East to West if cardinality could be forgiven. The gradual downward tilt made the walking easier and the funneling escarpment gave at least the illusion of marked progress.

The exhaustion they felt was purely psychological when they stopped to rest in a section of what Tony supposed had once been a mausoleum and was now more ruins. Slabs of marble and limestone had been pried off tombs and strewn about. Some were inscribed with a script Tony couldn’t decipher, others were burnt and covered in ash as if lightning or fire had erased them.

“Find anything that jogged your memory?” Steve asked, gingerly setting himself down.

Tony grimaced. “Nothing here except the Ten Commandments.”

“Don’t joke.”

“I’m not, some of these slabs look like they were struck by lightning, dumped into a burning bush and then smashed by Noah on the way down the mountain.” He turned to where Steve kept himself an arms length away in case God decided to smite Tony where he stood. “Alright, let’s get a look at that cut, Cap.”

Up close and personal the wound looked worse. The edges of skin were old and jagged, flaking around the few remaining stitches fighting against tension to keep the wound closed. Bits of dirt were caked into the thread, standing starkly against Steve’s pale skin. The opening wept unseemly yellow fluids and Tony didn’t want to guess how deep into the lung cavity the slice went. The answer wouldn’t be good, even for a supersoldier.

Tony bit his lip. “I don’t suppose you remember how you got this?”

Steve frowned. “It’s hazy. It’s all... hazy. Like it’s drifting further and further away.”

Tony didn’t press him. He proceeded to clean the wound as best he could with nothing but spit and polish. He tore some black thread from his own undersuit and used a bent piece of steel wire salvaged from Steve’s uniform to re-suture the cut. Tony’s left wrist was still sprained so the resulting seam was crooked and wonky. Tiny beads of red blood welled up on every stitch until the six-inch gash disappeared under a single line of black and crimson.

“Sorry,” Tony mumbled as he tied off the end. His fingers had always been dexterous and mobile but now they seemed clumsy.

“Can’t really feel it most of the time.” To prove his point Steve ran his finger along the sewn gash leaving a smear of blood behind before pulling on his uniform. “But sometimes... sometimes I can feel it killing me. Slowly. Then the pain fades, flattens out.”

“That’s probably one good thing about this place.” Tony suspected the pain would be agony if it wasn’t deadened. Steve’s body was fighting the infection but his mind was feeling the strain. When Steve got back someone more qualified than Tony would have to get a look at it.

 _If_ Steve got back. Pain or not, that wound looked like the type that wouldn’t surrender to a few stitches and a prayer. They were running out of time.

“Moses,” Steve murmured abruptly.

“What?”

 _“Moses_ brought the tablets down from the mountain.” His gaze was a million miles away. “Noah built the ark.”

“Really?” Tony tucked his tools away. “I must have skipped that Sunday School lesson.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.” Steve clasped his hands together. "I used to go to church every week. Never missed it. I always tried to do my best." He gave a heartbreaking little laugh. “And I ended up in Hell anyway.”

He sounded so completely serious and Tony could only snort. He regretted it when Steve flinched and softened his tone. “I’m pretty sure this isn't Hell, Cap. Not the capital ‘H’ one at least. There’s a distinct lack of fire and brimstone and well...” he motioned to the emptiness, “... _other people._ I can’t be the only sinner and even if I was that doesn’t explain you being here too.”

The blue of Steve’s eyes was washed out under the overcast sky. “I’ve done things.”

“Way fewer than I have,” Tony interrupted sharply. _“Jesus_ , Steve, you don’t deserve eternal damnation, how could you possibly think that?”

“If I don’t deserve it then why are we still here?” Steve looked at him like Tony had the answers.

He didn’t but was Tony’s fault they were here and he had to get them out soon given the state of Steve’s injury and mind. Every hour in this flat, dead land seemed to wear exponentially more on Steve than Tony.

“I’m working on it,” Tony said confidently to cover his unease, “and you don’t have to do anything but stay with me, Cap. We’re not dead yet and I don’t believe in the Afterlife - and that includes Hell.”

Steve’s smile was wry. “That why you keep punishing yourself?”

There was a phantom sting from the puncture wounds. “Someone should.”

Steve’s grimace tightened. He rested his forehead against his intertwined hands and Tony wondered why it took him so long to recognize a man praying. He moved to give Steve some privacy before the man in question surged forward and Tony froze, his sprained wrist caught in Steve’s careful grip.

Steve's eyes were feverish in their intensity. “You don’t deserve Hell either, Tony. You’re a better man than you used to be.”

“Thanks, Cap,” Tony whispered, smile frozen in place, but he didn’t exhale until Steve let him go.

Tony dreamt of fire before he remembered he could not dream. He watched the horizon as a snake of orange cut across the sloping landscape, the thin line of colour blazing against its feeble surroundings. Tony made his way towards it only to see Steve already silhouetted against the aurora, standing on the bank of yet another polluted river. Patches of oil and kerosene burned in pools suspended on top as the water flowed lazily downstream. The orange flames were almost alive, skating across the surface like ice dancers.

“The fire’s not hot,” Steve said, mesmerized. To prove his point, he extended a hand into the burning flames and then slowly pulled it out, uncharred. “It’s not even warm.”

Tony would hazard that Steve was right. The river stunk of burning oil wells, smoke floating up in thick black clouds, but no heat emanated from it. Between the pools of fire and the rainbow oil slicks Tony could see the shallow bottom littered with bits of shrapnel. He dipped his hand into the water and retrieved a remnant of an artillery shell. He knew what it was before he turned it over but he still made himself read the lettering. _S-T-A-R-K._ He threw it back into the river with a splash. He tried not to thing about hells.

Steve was suddenly right next to him. “Tony... your hand.”

It was dyed red - pink-ish, really - from the shell. Tony hastily tried to wash it off only to realize the entire river ran red. His rational brain insisted it was probably some dissolved mineral but Tony could only think of blood. He desperately tried to scrape the stain off with his fingernails and if his skin came off too then so be it.

“Tony...” Steve’s voice was soft, almost pitying.

Tony tucked his hands where he couldn’t see them. The illumination from the burning oil threw the forest beyond into stark relief. Giant malformed trees gathered closely: leafless and lifeless and looming. Tony staggered across the bleeding river towards them like a child reeled in by the novelty of strangers. Steve followed like a shadow behind.

The trees themselves were tall and empty with crooked limbs that gave them a jagged, malevolent outline. Every bit of dried bark Tony tore from their trunks crumbled to dust in his fingers. The sap they bled was black and smelled like motor oil. At first Tony didn’t notice the armour; without the reflection of sunlight, the metal of the Iron Man helmet looked dull where it was stamped underfoot one of the trees. The mask was crumpled under the weight of the root, the terminus bursting through the eye-slit to bind the faceplate more tightly to the base of the tree. A gold undersuit was suspended from on high in a sister tree, hanging limply like a flag without wind. A full gauntlet was embedded into the trunk of another. Further into the wood an entire suit was being consumed by a black-barked giant: the armour still complete as if the man inside had suddenly transformed into a dryad and no one had bothered to tell him his armour no longer fit.

There were no bodies, nothing to indicate the Iron Knights had been anything but hollow from the start. The trees had eaten their fill and were wearing their trophies: a feast for flora in the absence of sunlight.

Tony didn’t know which way he was going, he had left the reassuring lights of the burning river behind as he spiraled further into the forest. Every direction he turned was another crooked-spined outline turning another bit of Iron Man to mulch. He tripped over a half-buried root and when he looked up, he saw a shoddily-knotted noose dangling from the branch of an as yet unadorned tree; a snare to trap an iron prize. It was set at the perfect height.

“Tony, wait - “

He ran and as he ran the stars started falling. Bright flaming meteorites emerged from the grey cloud cover and rained down unhurriedly. Each ball of cold flame traveled along its personal trajectory slowly enough you could step between them before they hit the ground and fizzled out. Lit by the falling flares the forest shadows waxed and waned as the embedded pieces of armour glittered like jewellery hung about a lady’s throat.

Tony made it to the edge of the copse in a daze, panting from exertion as Steve crept up nearly silently next to him. Stretched out ahead was an uninterrupted view of the desert. The dunes rose in peaks and troughs following some unknown pattern. The flaming rain streaked slowly through the atmosphere like the slow-motion debris from some hidden inferno. Spitting embers to make up for the absence of stars. The orange against the dark sky seemed so very alive as the meteorites fell and buried themselves in the sand before dying.

It was horrendously beautiful, like no Hell Tony could ever hope to deserve.

They stood there for a long time.

“It’s beautiful.”

Steve’s lips quirked sadly. “You would say that.”

Tony took one step forward and jumped back, his bare foot scalded on the burning sand as if it had spent all day warming under the hot sun. The heat was the first warmth in this place that had none. It felt magnificent. Tony buried his feet until the skin reddened and cried out in pain. When he reached for Steve’s hand, he found it cold.

“C’mon,” Tony murmured, “let’s warm you up.”

The sand was too hot for the warmth to be soothing so Tony just led Steve back to the nearest skeleton tree and shuddered when he saw his own chestplate subsumed into the trunk. Of the pair of them Steve was normally the one who ran hot but now Steve’s skin felt like death warmed over. Tony stripped him down as far as he could and snuggled close, careful not to jostle Steve’s wound. It felt like cuddling a corpse, albeit one who insisted he couldn’t feel the cold. Tony supposed, now that he thought about it, that dead men couldn’t feel one way or the other.

He still didn’t really believe this was Hell. _A_ hell, maybe. Captivity more likely. A miscalculated last resort most probably and if Tony’s past desperate plans were prescient. He couldn’t remember and he was no longer sure he wanted to if this was the solution he’d come up with.

“You have any ideas on how to get out of here yet?” Steve asked like a broken record.

Tony couldn’t come up with a plausible lie fast enough. “No. I have no idea what the fuck I was thinking when I brought us here. I don’t recognize anything and you'd think I would have remembered the haunted forest with an obsession with stealing my stuff.”

“You’d think you’d remember a lot of things,” Steve replied, slightly bitter.

“I just need more time.”

 _“_ Time,” Steve echoed. That quantity that this place had in infinite abundance and that Steve had very little of left. Psychologically more than physically maybe.

Tony kissed him. When Steve’s lips remained unmoving Tony bit down until he drew blood and Steve jolted back into life, pinning Tony to the ground at the base of the twisted tree. The vee between Steve’s fingers and thumb slotted snugly around the base of Tony’s throat. His other hand was splayed across Tony’s chest right over his heart. Tony swallowed, his heart jumped, his groin throbbed. Steve felt everything. Even if there was no reprieve in sleep or dreams, there was still this. An hour of not caring about exits or injuries, where frustrations found a different outlet.

“Are you sure?” Steve asked dangerously. The bright meteorites reflected off the dark of his pupils, lighting them from within.

“Yes, yes, of course - “ Tony chanted until the hand at his throat abruptly squeezed off the last of his plea.

Steve stripped him out of his undersuit as cold fire rained down around them. A finger breeched him and if there was any pain it was deadened by this place and eclipsed by the elation of having Steve inside him. He could give Steve this to tide him over until Tony could figure out the rest. Steve’s silhouette was rutting over him as he chased down the only bit of pleasure available to him in this place. Tony stared upward into the lifeless eye-slits of an Iron Man faceplate suspended in the branches above and couldn’t look away.

Steve sped up but Tony barely noticed. The hand around his throat tightened with every thrust but nothing could tear Tony’s gaze away from his own empty mask mocking him. He was fighting to breathe now and it reminded him of the tree’s empty noose. Steve leaned down and kissed him, never breaking pace. His grip never loosened and Tony knew he didn’t have enough breath left to call him off; that agreed-upon word that would make it all stop hovering just out of reach at the edge of conscious thought. Tony watched the bright rain reflect off the Iron Man mask as the black spots in his vision started swarming, the man he loved in his arms.

Then there was nothing.

* * *

Tony blinked and the same fire shower was raining down from the sky. It was impossible to say how much time had passed. He couldn’t even be sure he’d blacked out but there was semen on his abdomen, already cooling. He didn’t remember the orgasm.

Steve was looking down at him intently, oddly composed. “Are you alright?”

Tony couldn’t help checking his throat. There was just the same dull ache that characterized this place.

Steve’s eyes widened. “Tony - Tony, do you know where we are?”

“No,” Tony said. He expected a rasp but his voice was undamaged. “That’s sort of the point. I know I’m getting us out of here. I know we’re going that way.” He pointed across the desert.

Steve shook his head. “Why - “

“Because I know that desert.” Tony recognized it now. It was the desert in Afghanistan or at least a decent replica, plucked fully formed from his nightmares.

“You're remembering?” Steve looked hopeful and distressed at once.

“Not really,” Tony’s expression was grim, “but if this place is my hell then the key will be at the centre and that means...” he waved across the dunes.

“I thought you said you didn’t believe in Hell.”

Tony stood at the edge of the burning sand. “I reserve the right to change my mind.”

They struck out across the desert under the raining fire. When the meteorites hit the sand they burned in place like lanterns lighting the way across the dunes. The sand made it too hot to stop so they didn’t. They walked for hours or days. Time meant very little here and even less in the repeating desert. Tony sometimes looked down at the sand and swore he was walking in someone else’s footprints but soon after the mirage would disappear into the ripples and Tony too would forget. Slowly but surely the rain lapsed and there was nothing but grey sky once more.

The edge of the desert was just as abrupt as its beginning, the sand butting up against cool, dark soil. The flat meadow that stretched out ahead of them may once have been covered in grass but it had long been upbraided. The little grass that remained had been poisoned yellow by some unknown substance. Long ditches had been dug ten feet deep and a wingspan wide into the raw earth. They wound off into the distance like a sunken labyrinth or the Kafkaesque interpretation of trench warfare.

“Stay on top,” Steve warned just as Tony jumped down.

“Why?”

Steve walked on ahead along the spine, his voice floating downwards. “Because they’re not trenches.”

The stench of decomposition hit Tony at once as he sank into the putrid soil. They weren’t trenches, they were graves. _Mass_ graves for when your family name carried too many dead and you’d added to the pile like a good little scion. Tony scrambled frantically up the side of the ditch to follow Steve along the ridge.

“Keep moving,” Steve said whenever he sensed Tony slowing, never letting him stop and peer too closely lest he slip into a final resting place.

Some of the graves had been dug deep, some shallow, some half-covered with earth. Any bones they saw had been picked white by desiccation and were all jumbled up like puzzle pieces fresh out of the box. Too many skulls were mixed in with too few spines. One grave held only ribcages with broken sternums where an arc reactor would have fit. Another had whole skeletons with their heads turned completely backwards, the empty chain of Agamotto still resting around their twisted necks. One ditch was perfectly orderly: row upon row of femurs stacked nearly to the brim with a crowning border of skulls resting atop, rising out to critique their interlopers like Waldorf and Statler at the opera.

The bones were less disturbing than the other sights. One trench was filled boiling pitch: black tar coating a victim in the act of pulling himself out, caught at the perfect moment of his escape. There was a fire - a real one - at the bottom of a deep crevasse. Tony could feel the heat rising and caught a glimpse of those trinkets the crematorium could not burn away: kimoyo beads and unstable molecules, all cradled in eternal flames.

The further they went on the more Tony fell behind. He felt sick and hot. There was a buzzing in his ears as if invisible gnats had made a home in skull. His vision fuzzed around the edges. There was death on either side as he stumbled after Steve who led him like a will-o’-the-wisp further and further into the maze until finally they stopped. Tony fell to his knees and vomited, crawling forward on all fours to where Steve was leaning over an old stone well. The tableau reminded Tony of something he’d seen before, somewhere.

Tony dragged himself up to look over the lip expecting some new unseemly horror. Except the well wasn’t filled with anything. It was bottomless, the blackness so black it played tricks on Tony’s mind and conjured images of all the monsters that lived inside. It was the perfect lair for a malevolent beast that guarded the key that would let them leave. Tony just had to trick him into giving it up.

“What we’re looking for is down there,” Tony whispered. He knew it on an instinctual level, just like he knew he had to save Steve.

Steve was silent beside him, face grim and sad. “God, I hope so.”

Tony’s hands skittered around the edge of the well as another wave of dizziness took him. His skin felt too hot and his tongue felt like cotton. He collapsed and slammed his shoulder into the stone. He couldn’t have told you which way was up.

“You tend to get bad around here,” someone said sympathetically as Tony reached out to stabilize himself.

He stared down into the nothingness of the well as the mortar gave way under his palms, the stones crumbling and leaving him with nothing but handfuls of empty air. He was perched on the edge of oblivion, caught; the pendulum too far forward to snatch back from gravity, with nothing but the beckoning black maw of the darkness below readying to swallow him whole.

Tony fell and Steve watched with nothing but a blank stare.

* * *

The meteorites should have been Tony’s first warning: gravity didn’t work right in this place. He fell like Alice down the rabbit hole; slowly through inky blackness, eyes wide open but with nothing to latch onto. A bright, sharp sting broke his fall with a heavy thud. Tony lay there, desperately trying to realign his reality before he realized that the pain he felt was _cold_. It was melting, trickling down the back of his undersuit. He’d landed in a snow bank. He greedily stuffed a handful into his mouth and relished the refreshing cool water. It felt amazing against his sore, burned feet and down his abused throat.

He’d fallen into a massive cave. The ceiling was a smooth black stone that blotted out the sky. The cave was lit from below and the light reflecting off the virgin snow gave everything a strange, white glow. Stalagmites and stalactites lined the floor and ceiling like teeth in a cavernous mouth. The ground wasn’t rock but a sheet of thick, white ice covering a large underground lake. The source of illumination was buried below the ice sheet, in the water, and the ice itself glowed eerily bright. The whole environs held a horrid, alien beauty.

Tony shivered and it wasn’t the cold. He looked into a puddle at the edge of the lake and caught a glimpse of a monster: a demon with tired red eyes and a too long beard with a ring of livid purple bruises around his throat that only ached now that Tony remembered they were there and who had given them to him.

Tony knew he should have called for Steve. He had promised not to leave him behind but that vow fell by the wayside like it had so many times before. He struck out alone across the glowing ice, the sheets releasing great cracks at intervals underneath his feet. There were shadows moving under the translucent ice but the thickness obscured any details. Tony staggered towards the lake’s center on numb feet. He didn’t know what he’d find but if this was a Hell then it had been designed for Tony. If it was meant to punish him then so be it but he’d find a way to make whoever - _whatever_ \- let Steve go.

Up ahead was a blemish on the ice and Tony was nearly upon it before he realized what it was. The red stood starkly against the white, two long streaks of blood ending in the clear outline of handprints. Next to them was a long, thin chip of stone that would make for an improvised dagger if you were so inclined. Tony picked up the shiv and felt its heft before he slipped it into his pocket. The inside of his undersuit was sticky. Somewhere along the way his puncture wounds had reopened.

As if in a trance Tony walked towards what he knew he’d find. In the middle of the lake there was a large fissure in the ice as if some god had struck it to pieces or something more fearsome had escaped. Tony could see the calm, frigid waters underneath, glowing. Perched at the edge was a man.

Most of this Hell had been designed for Tony but here, at its heart, was a place that could only ever belong to Steve.

Steve had taken his uniform off and was washing it in the water. His shield lay at his side, shiny and new looking, just like it had been when they had pulled him from the ice that first time. The awful gash across his pale chest was an angry inflamed red made all the more loathsome for the sin of ruining perfection. Naked and lit by the white glow of the water he held a terrible beauty all his own.

“Steve,” Tony whispered hoarsely. The shiv felt heavy in his pocket.

Steve turned, weary. “You remember.”

Tony nearly stumbled as the force it hit him. He remembered fighting the Celestials. He remembered the Cursed Blade being driven into Steve’s chest and then a reckless plan and an even more reckless promise. _I promise everything’s going to be alright. Trust me, Steve._ And then Tony had transported them here, to the Celestials own Ether-World, the raw foodstuff of galaxies. A place where Sleep did not exist but where Death couldn’t find them either. A pocket of suspended time to save a dying man.

“We’re in the Ether.” That’s what the glow was underneath the water.

“We’re in Hell,” Steve corrected and Tony knew now that he meant it metaphorically and had from the very beginning. Steve gestured towards the hole in the ice and his voice broke. “You even gave me a home.”

Tony took a step back. “It shouldn’t be like this...”

It should have been a paradise. They were gods here. The Ether drew landscapes from the minds it was connected to but to Steve this endless, infinite place was a hell and so it had become one. It had Tony’s desert, Steve’s ice, and death-without-Death everywhere because the real thing wasn’t allowed. The mortal part of Steve knew he should have been long dead by now and so had taken this place that would not let him rest and had warped it into an underworld that punished them both.

“...it should have been - ”

“Beautiful?” Steve finished, utterly oblivious to his own allure. “You seem to think it is.”

Because Steve was not the sole architect. This place belonged to Tony too, and so their Hell was beautiful and empty and painless. And here, at the centre of it all, Tony had built himself a warning in a frozen lake: a reminder that devils were bound by ice as well as fire.

“Do you remember how to leave yet?” Steve asked and there was a word floating at the edge of Tony’s periphery, that magic key that would unlock the Ether and send them home. Steve looked at him. “You do, don’t you.”

“If I take you back, you’ll die.” The cursed wound in Steve’s breast would kill him as soon as they stepped through.

“But you remember how to do it.”

Tony swallowed. “Yes.”

“But you won’t.”

“I can’t - I can’t lose you,” Tony confessed. Here he could keep Steve alive and Tony was a selfish man.

Steve was crying silently, tears running down his cheeks and Tony wondered if they’d be as cold as ice water. "I can't do this anymore, Tony. I don't want to."

“Please," Tony begged. "Just hold on a little longer. Stephen or Reed or T’Challa will pull us out when it’s safe to revive you. You won’t remember any of this but until then... _I can't._ "

Steve's mouth twisted as he looked down at his hands. “I really hoped this time you’d choose different.”

_This time..._

Tony blinked, dizzy. This place wouldn’t let them sleep or die but it would let Tony forget for awhile. He got to forget Steve’s look of remorse as he drove the shiv between Tony’s ribs and then twice more. He got to forget being smothered face-first into the mud until he’d finally stopped breathing, and the act of tying his own noose with shaking hands in a forest. And each time Tony got to wake up new and full of wonder as Steve tried again and again to trick the Beast that had trapped him here into giving up the key that would let him leave.

But Tony had proved himself a different kind of Adversary. He couldn’t let the man he loved die even if it made him hate Tony. Even if he had to suffer at Steve’s hands over and over and over. It was those little-deaths that ironically kept Tony sane and made Steve madder. Every fresh betrayal begot another as they corrupted their paradise and dragged it further into Hell.

Steve needed to sleep, to forget - to _die_ as well as he could here - but he’d never trust Tony’s word for it.

Tony drew close, his free hand drifting towards the hidden shiv. “I’m sorry, Steve.“

He wasn’t fast enough. Steve was always better at this and always had been. Tony’s sprained wrist was broken with an audible snap. Steve threw the shiv away and it skittered across the ice out of reach.

“I’m sorry too,” Steve said, sincere and wretched at once.

Tony couldn’t outrun Steve across the lake. He hadn’t made it very far last time. He wondered if the next time he woke he’d be here on the ice, or if Steve would carry his body all the way back to the beginning before he regained consciousness. It didn't really matter. The two of them would begin in hope and end in betrayal; be it in the forest, or in the mud, or on the ice, as Steve tried to cajole his gaoler into remembering enough to reveal the exit before realizing why he should never let his quarry go.

Tony wondered how many of those funerary cairns Steve had assembled himself; if each of them was a death Tony couldn’t remember. If each of those devoured, hollow knights in the forest marked a suicide.

Steve stepped into the frigid water and held out a hand in invitation. Tony had the key. He rolled the magic word across his palate before swallowing it down. He could depart the Ether on his own but he wouldn’t. He’d promised Steve he wouldn’t leave him behind.

“I love you,” Tony said as he took Steve’s hand.

Steve said nothing back and that was fitting because this was Tony’s Hell too: a place where Steve loved him not like he’d always wished but like he’d always deserved. Steve led him slowly into the icy waters like a baptism. The white light shone below them and the cold stung like a thousand needles. One final exorcism before being reborn.

Steve kissed him and Tony had been wrong: Steve’s tears were warm. A hand cradled the back of his neck.

“Maybe next time,” Steve whispered as he lowered Tony underwater and held him there as his body began to thrash.

The white of the Ether pulsed gloriously white as Tony screamed and the air in his lungs was replaced with water; one more beautiful, empty death in this beautiful, empty Hell they'd made themselves.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Warnings:_ Violence between characters. Graphic descriptions of wounds. Lots of morbid imagery. Implied suicide. Intended murder. Choking/suffocation/drowning. Dangerous sex. A character is missing information most people would say is necessary to give informed consent. 
> 
> A sequel exists here: [This Crowded Place](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29035065)
> 
> I have a deep love of _Dante's Inferno_ and this Hell's geography is a decrepit, empty version of his. Tony wakes up at the long-rusted gates and together he and Steve travel across Lower Hell (Limbo-the castle, Lust-the storm, Gluttony-the snow, Greed-the cairns, Wrath-the swamp) through Lower Hell (Heresy-the tombs, Violence-the forest and desert, Fraud-the ditches) and into the Ninth Circle (Treachery-the frozen lake), committing, in pretty decent order, all those sins as they go.
> 
> In Dante's poem, at the very centre of Hell the beastly Satan is trapped in ice and forever mauls those infamous sinners who committed the ultimate moral crime: betrayal of their benefactors. Of Tony and Steve, I'm not sure who was doing the betraying and who the punishing. 
> 
> And while I like to believe that T'Challa, Reed, and Stephen eventually rescue them, wouldn't it be fun if Tony was wrong and after they're saved they both remember _everything_?
> 
> Cheers.


End file.
